Russian President Putin covers political issues and private life at annual call-in show

reporting from moscow —  The question from 12-year-old Varya Kuznetsova to Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday went something like this:

If Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko were drowning, whom would Putin save first?

The question, among several million submitted for Putin’s annual call-in television show, got him to say he’d been put in an awkward position. Turkey and Ukraine, as well as the United States, are among the nations with strained relations with Russia.

Putin smiled thinly — he had repeatedly condemned both leaders and cut off economic ties with their nations, even though the move undermined Russia’s economy.

Poroshenko stood up to Russia’s 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula and Moscow’s support of pro-Russia separatists in eastern Ukraine, and Erdogan’s air force shot down a Russian plane that violated Turkish airspace during a mission in northern Syria in late November.

“I don’t even know what to say,” said Putin, who often comes up with salty answers to questions.

“If someone decided to drown, it’s impossible to save them,” he said as Russian officials and celebrities sitting in the studio laughed and applauded. “But we are, of course, ready to extend a helping hand, a friendly hand to any partner of ours — if they want us to.”

The annual call-in exercise covered topics including the country’s struggling economy, Russia’s role in the Syrian civil war, corruption, U.S. relations and Putin’s private life.

Since Putin’s first presidency began in 2000, the Kremlin has orchestrated a crackdown on independent media, critics and the opposition and lavishly paid for a resurgent propaganda machine. The Kremlin’s press service does not allow unexpected, truly provocative questions that would catch Putin unprepared.

One indignant caller urged Putin to sue the newspapers that published reports based on the so-called Panama Papers, the leaked documents from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca indicating that people from around the world stashed hundreds of millions of dollars in offshore accounts.

The reports said Putin’s closest friend, cellist and conductor Sergei Roldugin, is believed to own three companies that hid about $2 billion in offshore accounts.

Putin said Roldugin did own some businesses but used his profits to buy expensive musical instruments and finance scholarships for talented young musicians. The real question, Putin said, is who stands behind the Panama Papers.

The Kremlin has alleged that the U.S. State Department and the National Security Agency orchestrated the leak.

Putin said Thursday that the United States should end what he called its imperial ambitions. When asked whether he would miss President Obama, whose term ends next year, Putin said that he continues to work with the president and that “we all shall leave one day.”

Putin readily answered questions about Russia’s airstrikes in Syria and military support to embattled President Bashar Assad in that country’s civil war, now in its sixth year.

Putin said “there is a danger” of further expansion of Islamic State but insisted that Moscow remains committed to stopping the extremist group even after last month’s pullout of some of Russia’s forces from Syria.

“It’s not like we left and dropped everything,” he said. “After the withdrawal we left the Syrian army capable of carrying out serious offensive operations with the support of the remaining [Russian] contingent.”

Many callers asked about the deplorable state of Russia’s economy, which has suffered from Western sanctions and other factors, and soaring food prices.

“The rise in food prices is a temporary phenomenon,” he said. “Prices will stabilize.”

Another hot topic for some Russians is Putin’s personal life after he and his wife, Lyudmila, divorced in 2013.

“You know, we meet sometimes. Not often, but from time to time,” Putin said. “We have good relations. They may actually be better than they had been before. I know that all is well with her.... And I am also doing well.”

The divorce hardly affected Putin’s approval ratings, which remained high throughout his presidencies and 2008-2012 premiership. In late March, his approval rating was 82%, according to the Levada Center, a Moscow-based independent pollster.

Even the economic crisis does not hurt his ratings much, as Kremlin-controlled media unashamedly blame the West.

The call-in also helped Putin protect his image of a feared-yet-fair leader who acts fast to protect the Russian people from corruption.

Two women complained that they had not been paid by a cannery for months of work on the Pacific island of Shikotan, one of four islands in a territorial dispute that has kept Russia and Japan from signing a peace treaty to end World War II.

Putin promised justice and before the three-hour, 40-minute call-in show was over, Russian media reported that the cannery’s director would face fines and criminal charges.

Mirovalev is a special correspondent.